Mistletoe
by RinLenLaRiRin Awaawowaka
Summary: One shot done for a fic challenge: How wonderful it is to see Granny Keeny suffer. How beautifully ironic that it be a symbol of love, of her precious Christmas, and the physical affections she was loathe to that cause it. Beautiful indeed. Warning: In here be body horror.


All she had left now were her eyes and some semblance of brain processing. A fitting punishment for the wretched old bat. And what's better? He'd timed it just so every important, precious day to the hyper religious woman marked the loss of yet another capacity over the course of the year.

How beautiful it was to watch as she struggled, prayed, and suffered. It started with her legs. Maimed so beautifully that one had to be replaced, on Christmas day last year, and, predictably, she hadn't wanted one of the "newfangled, devil's prosthetics " Instead, that old cane, the one she'd wielded against him so often in his boyhood became her leg. Perfect. Jonathan had been banking on that, and called in some help from a friend. Over the course of the next few weeks, the wooden leg grew, its xylem and phloem becoming one with the veins and arteries in old Gran's body. Not once did she notice the deep burning and itching as her skin roughened, and blood thickened with unnatural sap.

Next came the parasites, wretched and single-minded. They weren't malicious, no, but they were hungry, opportunistic little things. A certain woman of a similar nature had seen to the success of these, willingly, even. Well, willingly until she became the lab rat. Her screams were positively perfect, and he saved her from it, begrudgingly. He needed her still. Long regarded by pagans as a sacred, but deadly plant, the irony was delicious. And, with planning the end around Yuletide the next year? How much more perfect could it get than to cause a slow, painful demise with one of the biggest symbols of the whole pathetic ordeal? Perfect.

Day by day, the roots of the toxic plant grew, never causing damage. Not until they broke into the vascular system of the wood. Then is sucked up the nutrients it needed. The thing about plants is, as you feed them, they grow. And this went for opportunistic parasites, too. It grew, it grew the only way it could: up the leg of his abuser. Still she didn't notice, even as she was slowly drained of life.

There goes your lunch, Gran. While it hadn't been planned originally, it was a welcome side-effect. The more the plant spread, it seemed, the more its toxic effects bled into the woman's daily life. He clapped in delight as she doubled over in pain, the poison beginning to take a toll on her digestive tract, and she hadn't even got to the point where she was accidentally ingesting it yet. It was all just pain for now. Pain and agony, like she'd inflicted on those around her.

And then she was bedridden. Alone. Utterly alone with her demons. What was she afraid of? Death. A figure she'd evaded so, she dreaded so. She knew now. Oh she knew he was waiting, looming. Jonathan would drag this out, her fear would be there, so close, but so far. An endless limbo with him. Hah, pathetic, scared child. How to make this worse? Why, a parasite for the parasite. The larvae of the white wood butterfly feasting upon the mistletoe plant that'd now grown over most of her lower body, much as similar insects would feast upon her once she passed. And the a flock of butterflies encasing her, it was almost poetic in how similar to her fate after death her current situation was. He wondered if she got it, though.

And still she had no idea it was him behind it all. She was still blaming the devil. Fine. Let her, it wasn't important. Whatever helped her sleep at night.

And slowly, slowly everything else began to be taken over and shut down. She was wasting away, and no one cared. Encased in plants, much as she would be when she was dead. And now all there was was her eyes, and her brain. Correction. One eye, and some of her brain. Just enough to recognize him.

Perfect.

Now he stepped out of the shadows, with his pale shade at his side, waving his scythe at her in a mock greeting. "Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man's hat." His smirk, though invisible, was quite audible, and Gran had no choice but to watch. Watch as he harvested the mistletoe growing on her rapidly disappearing body, chuckling, "I think I can make a pretty penny selling this, don't you? Finally, you'll be doing good for the world. As a decoration for filthy little children to kiss each other under!"

Watch as he turned to the pale assistant and force-fed her the berries as she cried. "Come now, it won't kill you, it'll just hurt."

Watch everything she'd failed in in her last moments as everything shut down. Her eyes stopped, her logic. Memories gone. All that was left was the limbic system. The last thing she knew, her fight-or-flight reflexes faded. And so stopped the woman's blackened heart.

Then, the clock struck midnight. Merry Christmas, Grandmother Keeny.


End file.
